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Glossary

Navigate the complex world of currency management with our comprehensive dictionary of financial terms and definitions.

Under-Hedging

Under-hedging is to the application of a lower-than-optimal optimal hedge ratio to hedge a given FX exposure. Under-hedging is common when forward points are ‘against’ a company, for example when a European firm sells in Emerging Markets currencies that trade at a forward discount to EUR. Risk managers are naturally reluctant to sell these currencies in forward markets, given the high cost of carry. Under-hedging, in such a situation, can be counter-productive. This is because currencies with a high cost of carry tend to be highly volatile and can cause severe losses. The solution is to use Currency Management Automation solutions to calculate a weighted-average rate of all individual pieces of exposure and to build a ‘tolerance’ (in % terms) around that benchmark rate. Then, ‘take-profit’ and ‘stop-loss’ orders are automatically set, allowing the firm to effectively delay the execution of the trades, and thus to take shorter-maturity hedges that create savings on the carry.